


good ones always seem to break

by My_King_And_Your_Lionheart



Series: Keith Genuary 2019 [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotionally and physically, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Keith Genuary 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 16:11:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17267243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_King_And_Your_Lionheart/pseuds/My_King_And_Your_Lionheart
Summary: Keith didn't really know the Holts. He definitely didn't know them well enough to expect Mrs. Holt (He really can't call her Colleen) to show up at his hospital room just to make sure he's okay.





	good ones always seem to break

**Author's Note:**

> OKay y'all Imma need ur help keeping me on this one fic a day train bc I can barely do weeks and this is my first month try so it's gonna be rough.
> 
> work title from Sky Full of Song by Florence and the Machine
> 
> Colleen became weirdly southern. Anyway. Enjoy!

Keith had… known the Holts before everything had gone downhill. Had been friends with Matt prior to the Kerberos mission, and had regularly talked with the couple when they called Matt when he was studying, or in the shower, or otherwise incapable of answering his phone. He’d known them in the basics of knowing someone- they had their two kids, a dog, and their garden was great for growing carrots but not tomatoes, no matter how hard Colleen had tried. Flowers wilted where they grew, but root vegetables were always abundant.

He’d been to their house, once. Had been there, after. After. Colleen had come by the Garrison to pick up the last of her family’s possessions, and he’d been there, some discipline issue or other that Iverson had yelled at him about. She’d stood there, Mrs. Holt, in all her widowed grief, gray hair pulled back from her face and eyes red. She’d held the box of what her husband and her son left behind and didn’t crumble under the weight. Keith had admired that. 

She’d turned to him, tilted her head like she was trying to place him. She’d asked him his name, and then recognizing who he was, the face she’d never seen but the boy she’d spent hours talking to, she invited him to the house. Invited him to talk, because they’d been his best friends. His only friends, really. And, not knowing how to turn down this woman who’d lost so much more than him, he’d agreed.

He’d gone to her house, looked at the photos on the walls, and started crying. It had been the only time he’d cried over them, looking back on it. She’d held him, given him a shoulder and tissues and water when he’d finished, and held him. He’d never gone back, and after they’d all been launched into space, he honestly never thought he’d see Mrs. Holt again, let alone the rest of her family.

Seeing her again was, without hyperbole, one of the weirdest encounters in his life. Counting all the aliens he’d met, the Galra prince he’d fought beside, literally being one fifth of a universe saving robot comprised of five robot lions, coming face to face with Colleen Holt was absurd. She didn’t seem to think so, though. She just smiled at him and continued on past him to hug her daughter.

Keith didn’t see her again until he was in a hospital bed, feeling like he’d lost a fight against a soul sucking monstrosity from space. Oh, wait, that had actually happened. All he wanted to do was sleep, without Krolia and Kolivan watching his every chest rise and listening to all the monitors for something to go wrong.

There was a knock on the door. Keith wanted to keep his eyes closed, to pretend to be asleep, wasn’t in the mood for facing his mother or his former leader when they had left his room barely half an hour ago per his request. But he was the head of Voltron, pilot of the Black Lion, and was expected to face his own mom even when she was being particularly hovery.

“Keith?” It was not Krolia, was a voice he barely knew, but one that tickled the back of his mind. He opened his eyes to see Colleen Holt standing in the doorway. Keith immediately tried to sit up straighter, but gave up almost immediately as his ribs screamed their protest at him. Colleen rushed in and helped him lay back down against the bed. “Silly boy. Don’t hurt yourself on my account.” Keith finally found his voice.

“Mrs. Holt?” She smiled at him, all motherly and kind.

“You know you can call me Colleen, Keith. And I just wanted to see how you were doing.” He really, really couldn’t, but he wasn’t about to tell her that.

“Oh. Thanks. Um.” Keith had no clue what to say. He hadn’t expected her to come, when Pidge was also still in her own hospital room. “How’s Pidge? Um.” Colleen kept smiling at him.

“Katie’s doing just fine. Grounded for life, but she’s healing just fine.” She frowned a little bit, and the lines around her eyes became more pronounced. “You were the worst off of all of them, you know. Didn’t wake up for days.” Her eyes trailed the countless tubes still sticking out of veins or lead patches and leading to various machines before refocusing on Keith’s face. “Made me worry, you did. Katie’s been telling me all sorts of stories, and it’s hard to believe that you all turned out mostly fine.” Keith should say something, he knows he should, because Mrs. Holt’s voice is getting weirdly wobbly, and he is so not prepared for her to cry.

“Um.” Keith tried bringing up his arms, but there was no easy way to move them without jostling some wire or tube or other. “Um.”

“Oh, don’t you worry your head about me.” And there it was, Colleen’s hand swiping at her eyes, and Keith really wasn’t ready for this. “I just… All I had in my head was my little Katie off fighting monsters, and you, my Keith, making sure she was safe.” Her words startle Keith, her possession of him, even with having met him all of once. “And I only remember you sitting with me after… After.” She sniffles, reaching for a tissue, but Keith already had them in hand. He holds one out. “Why, thank you.” She wipes at her face, but the tears keep coming. “You were so small, that day. Just a boy who missed his people. I worried for you, too, out there.”

“I would’ve protected her with my life.” Keith doesn’t know what Colleen wants to hear. She must have just been worried that Keith wouldn’t have been up to the job of keeping Pidge safe, not that she couldn’t do it herself, not that she kept them all safe hundreds of times.

“Oh, Keith, honey, I know. That’s what always worried me about you.” Colleen pulls another tissue from the box. “She can take care of herself; she’s her mother’s daughter, but you always felt so much.” And finally, finally, Colleen looks up at Keith, makes full eye contact, and it’s too much, too much but Keith can’t pull his eyes away. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. If you needed a shoulder, but it looks like that back fired, didn’t it?”

And Keith suddenly knows what she meant, won’t tell her that he almost did die for them some times over, doesn’t need to burden her with things he hasn’t even told the paladins, but he gets it. Four years ago him wouldn’t have been able to do what he did. But the present him can do this. He can put her arms around Mrs. Holt, lend her his shoulder and offer tissues, and he can tell her hilarious stories of the team in space until she stops crying. He can offer her his own shaky smile, exhausted, but in a cathartic way.

"Hey, Mrs. Holt?" She turns from where she was moving toward the doorway. She smiles, all motherly and kind. "You should ask Pidge about her trash nebula. I like that story." Her smile deepens, drawing out the lines of her face.

"Take care of yourself, Keith." She leaves.

 


End file.
